ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Russia Hoax: Should We All Now Just Move On? March 29, 2019/ Francis Menton

Posted By on March 30th, 2019

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-3-29-the-russia-hoax-should-we-all-now-just-move-on

A week ago today, the issuance of the Mueller Report finally popped the long-inflating bubble of the Trump/Russia collusion hoax. After thousands of excited and breathless press reports and cable news segments over two-plus years (“new bombshell,” “the walls are closing in,” “impeachment,” etc.), it turned out that there was nothing there. So is there any point in wasting any more time on this? Why don’t we all just move on?

You won’t be surprised that many voices in the media are already advocating for that. At the New York Times, they had barely made it to Tuesday when the lead front page article, headlined “Trump, Citing ‘Evil Deeds,’ Turns Wrath on His Critics,” started pushing for Trump to “drop the subject,” citing the precedents of Reagan and Clinton:

[Trump’s] approach [of seeking retribution against his critics], if it lasts, contrasts with those of other presidents who survived major scandals. After the Iran-contra affair, President Ronald Reagan happily dropped the subject and focused on arms control talks with the Soviet Union and other issues. After being acquitted at his Senate impeachment trial, President Bill Clinton was just as eager to move on to Social Security and other initiatives.

Less expected, perhaps, was the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the same day from long-time G.W. Bush advisor Karl Rove, with the headline “Move On From Robert Mueller, Mr. President.” That article’s gist was captured in its sub-headline, “Obsessing over the investigation’s origins isn’t the way to win over swing voters.” Rove urges Trump to switch his attention to focusing on a positive message, including the strong economy.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Scalise: Those Who Call Fossil Fuels ‘Immoral’ Should ‘Stop Using Them Today’ By Nicholas Ballasy

Posted By on March 30th, 2019

https://pjmedia.com/trending/scalise-those-who-call-fossil-fuels-immoral-should-stop-using-them-today/

WASHINGTON — House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) called on lawmakers and activists who argue that fossil fuels are “immoral” to “stop using them today.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, proposed a bill in 2017 that would outlaw the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles within the U.S. beginning in 2035. Members of Congress such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have called for the end of fossil fuel production in America.

Scalise was asked if he would support banning the sale of gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles in the U.S. by a certain date.”No, and in fact, I would suggest that people who say fossil fuels are immoral, I disagree with them, first of all. I think fossil fuels help save lives, help lower costs, help create jobs and help people have a higher standard of living in America.

But if they truly think fossil fuels are immoral, then stop using them today,” Scalise said on Wednesday during a press conference on Capitol Hill about the House Energy Action Team, which was formed in response to the Green New Deal.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Eric Holder: America Never Great A God complex on full display. Matthew Vadum

Posted By on March 30th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273320/eric-holder-america-never-great-matthew-vadum

America has never been “great” and those who embrace the Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” or MAGA, are racists, sexists, and homophobes, disgraced former Attorney General Eric Holder told his ideological comrades at MSNBC in an interview this week.

Since leaving office Holder has been spending his time plotting to turn the U.S. into a one-party state. He recently said the next Democrat president should pack the Supreme Court with leftists to combat what he called Republicans’ “power-grabbing antics.” Holder is now chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a political action committee that claims “the political system is rigged,” and “the fight to fix it is now.”

But what is particularly disturbing is that Holder, cited with contempt by Congress and nearly impeached and who spent his time in office stirring up racial animosity for political advantage –he infamously called America “a nation of cowards” on issues involving race— is not an outlier on the Left with his ugly, anti-American views. His sentiments are largely embraced by the Democratic Party’s base across the country, the mainstream media, Hollywood, academia, and more or less by all those now running for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Putin Pulls a Syria in Venezuela The Russian is betting he can prop up Maduro at little political cost.

Posted By on March 30th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-pulls-a-syria-in-venezuela-11553901531

Vladimir Putin has made a career of intervening abroad and seeing if the world lets him get away with it. He did this in Georgia when George W. Bush was President, then in Crimea, eastern Ukraine and Syria in Barack Obama’s Presidency. Now he’s doing the same on Donald Trump’s watch—this time in America’s backyard in Venezuela.

Two planes arrived in Caracas last weekend with 100 Russian troops, and in recent years Russia has provided cash, food and weapons to prop up the regime of Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. has thrown its support behind Juan Guaidó, the interim president chosen by the National Assembly and backed by nearly every country in the region. But Mr. Putin is betting that with a limited military and financial investment he can keep Mr. Maduro in power, expand his control over Venezuela’s oil company, impress the world with his moxie, and embarrass Mr. Trump.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Stop Iran From Going Nuclear by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on March 30th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13961/iran-going-nuclear

“Thank God, the tests on the IR4 and IR2M (centrifuges) have been completed. They were tested for over 12 years. Today we have all the data, and we can easily manufacture them on an industrial scale.” — Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was not allowed to inspect or monitor Iran’s military sites where nuclear activities were most likely being carried out. Among the many concessions that the Obama administration gave the Iranian government, one was accepting the Iranian leaders’ demand that these military sites would be out of the IAEA’s reach.

Due to this surrender, various high-profile Iranian sites such as the Parchin military complex, located southeast of Tehran, were free to engage in nuclear activities without the risk of inspection.

Once the authoritarian, anti-Semitic and anti-American government of Iran possess a nuclear bomb, no amount of actions will be able reverse the catastrophe.

POLITICS Comments turned off

No Time to ‘Move On’: Trump’s Michigan Triumph By Roger Kimball

Posted By on March 29th, 2019

https://amgreatness.com/2019/03/29/no-time-to-move-on-trumps-michiga

Grand Rapids, Michigan, might be my new favorite city. I hadn’t remembered that it was the president’s last stop on the 2016 campaign trail until he reminded his huge (yuge!) audience there on Thursday night. At 1:00 a.m. on November 8, 2016, he drew some 30,000 cheering people. Some hours before that rally, he recalled, Hillary was waddling (my word, not his) across a stage before 500 or 600 kale-eating advocates for wind power and open borders. I’ll wait while Politifact weighs in with the important correction that Hillary actually drew 687 supporters.

That was no big deal because, you see, she had Michigan sewn up. Trump couldn’t win the nomination, certainly couldn’t win “blue wall” states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio. The well-pressed establishment Geist, incarnated in the Clinton-Obama dynasty, would thrive for at least another generation. The blob was safe. Time for a final Chardonnay and a nap . . .

The rally in Grand Rapids on Thursday night was classic Trump. The braggadocio, the calculated shamelessness—our accomplishments, their stupidity—the off-the-cuff, rhetorically roughhewn delivery, not eloquent, exactly—at least not by traditional rhetorical metrics—but surgically precise in gauging and playing to the emotional temper of the crowd.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

What Siegfried & Roy Forgot by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on March 29th, 2019

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/22503/what-siegfried-roy-forgot

Siegried & Roy were illusionists whose famous Las Vegas act with Bengal tigers thrilled audiences at the Mirage Resort and Casino for thirteen years. Their daredevil performance was predicated on the technique of “affection conditioning” in which Roy bonded rather than trained the animals. The method required raising tiger cubs from birth and sleeping with them until they were a year old. Roy described the experience saying, “When an animal gives you its trust, you feel like you have been given the most beautiful gift in the world.”

On October 3, 2003 Roy Cohn’s prized cat, 380 lb Montecore, sunk its teeth into Roy’s neck and dragged him offstage before a horrified audience.

Roy faithfully insisted that Montecore was just trying to protect him. Other experts had a more realistic view of the attack. Kay Rosaire, head of the Big Cat Encounter in Florida at the time said, “They’re predators, so who can really know what goes on in their minds? Even though they are raised in captivity and they love us, sometimes their natural instincts just take over.”

Trying to tame the wildness of a Bengal tiger for entertainment denies the predatory nature of the animal. So it is with the Muslim Brotherhood in America

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Next Shoes to Drop After the Mueller Report . By Charles Lipson –

Posted By on March 29th, 2019

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/03/26/the_next_shoes_to_drop_after_the_mueller_report_139856.html

Footwear aplenty will fall as more details from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report are disclosed. The reckoning will come in several baskets and will fall on Democrats and Republicans alike, with major ramifications for 2020.

Basket No. 1: More information about the Mueller Report and the basis for its conclusions.The public wants that information and deserves it. Democrats will cry “coverup” if they don’t get everything. While Republicans emphasize “no collusion,” Democrats will concentrate their attention on Mueller’s indecision regarding President Trump’s possible obstruction of justice. Democrats will press Attorney General William Barr about the special counsel’s ambiguous conclusion—and Barr’s own definitive one–about the obstruction issue. Other Trump critics, who heretofore have described Bob Mueller as a modern-day Eliot Ness, will start crying, “Whitewash!”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel on the Golan Heights enhances US interests Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

Posted By on March 29th, 2019

https://bit.ly/2YfZ2TE

While US recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights bolsters the national security of the Jewish State, it also yields major strategic benefits for the US.

Thus, President Trump’s endorsement of Israeli sovereignty over the strategically commanding Golan Heights – which may be reinforced by a Congressional resolution – highlights the synergy between the national security of the US and Israel. It underlines the mutually-beneficial, two-way-street strategic coordination and cooperation between the US and Israel.

This endorsement enhances the posture of deterrence of Israel – a systematic, unwavering, effective beachhead of the US in the Middle East – and therefore extends the strategic hand of the US, without the need to deploy additional US forces to the region.

In fact, Israel’s upgraded strategic profile has been a most effective US force-multiplier in the Middle East.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Strivers, sulkers and the State of Israel David Goldman

Posted By on March 29th, 2019

https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/opinion/strivers-sulkers-and-the-state-of-israel/

Nothing succeeds like success, and the State of Israel’s success in a range of fields has created more goodwill for the Jewish people than at any time in history, and also more enmity. The world’s strivers see Israel as an example, and the world’s sulkers view Israel as a humiliating reminder of their misery.

Joseph Dana argued in a March 25 opinion article on this site that “political Zionism raises the risk of anti-Semitism.” That is true only to the extent that success breeds envy. Success also elicits admiration, though, and Israel is admired by ambitious and upwardly mobile people around the world. On balance, political Zionism has brought about far more philo-Semitism than anti-Semitism.

Half a million tourists visited Israel in December 2018, twice the number of the previous December. South Korean high-school students are adopting traditional Jewish learning techniques. Books about Jewish success are best-sellers in China. Chinese students are applying to Israeli universities; 200 now attend the University of Haifa compared with just 20 in 2013, and nearly 200 are enrolled at the Technion, Israel’s elite science university.